


shine bright

by dollsome



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: In which Rory surprises Paris with a kind gesture, and Paris -- as always -- has all the Rory feels. Set after the revival.





	shine bright

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the prompt "gimme your hand" + a pairing of my choice by allegro-and-old-lace over on Tumblr. Of course, my pairing of choice is always Ye Olde Raris. :)
> 
> In this fic, Rory didn't go through with her pregnancy, because I have a really hard time picturing Rory as a mom like 97% of the time and it tends to really impede my ability to write post-revival fic, so I just decided to roll with that feeling this time. She is, however, definitely leaning into that stepmom-to-Paris's-kids life.

By the time Paris walks through the front door of her and Rory’s new apartment, she’s been at work for fourteen hours and she’s ready to give up the whole helping-people-have-miracle-babies thing and turn into an evil genius. Shady _Orphan Black_ -style cloning is way closer than anybody thinks, and Paris could be on the front lines of that scientific revolution. Why not? Clearly nobody appreciates her efforts right now. It’s time to turn to the dark side.

She’ll definitely at least make a pro/con list with Rory about it.

But first she’s going to take a bubble bath and verbally lambast TED Talks on her iPad. She likes to think that nobody except Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has held a candle to her own yet.

She isn’t expecting Rory—who’s usually burned out on writing and working at the cute hipster bookshop nearby and hating herself for being 33 and working at a cute little hipster bookshop but also loving the bookshop life, getting to babble about her favorites to customers and try to pair strangers up with titles like a matchmaker and smell all the books she wants to and mix fancy coffee drinks and know that she’s doing _something_ , even if that something is giving up on the Great Rory Gilmore Mythos for now—to be waiting at the front door for her.

But she is.

Rory’s wearing yoga pants and a baggy old Yale t-shirt and her hair is pulled up in a sloppy ponytail. Her socks have Paul Anka on them. The dog, not the singer. (Once Lorelai had discovered that you could order custom-made socks with your pet on them, it was all over for everyone.)

Something about the unexpected sight of Rory like this, all at home, makes Paris’s stomach twist itself up. The way it always did back at Chilton when she’d see her for the first time in the morning. A flash of long brown hair and ugly yellow backpack in the hallway, and bam, Paris had a gut full of butterflies. At the time she’d blamed it on dairy. These days she has a dietician and no feasible excuse.

“Gimme your hand,” Rory orders, eyes bright with excitement.

Paris does. She stares down at their entwined hands for just a second. Rory’s are covered in something green.

Rory drags her through their new home: smaller but more spacious somehow, a place they picked out together. There are no stairs, thank God. There’s a kitchen that they’re trying to get better about cooking in (the fridge is full of take-out, but they’ll change that one of these days) and a living room and 1.5 bathrooms and one little office, still empty because they can’t decide what to do with it, and three bedrooms: one for her, one for Rory, one for the kids. Sometimes Paris thinks about how Gabby and Tim are so going to throw fits for their own rooms when they’re older. Bunk beds aren’t cute when you’re on the precipice of puberty. She tries to figure out the math when she can’t sleep at night. Somehow she always lands on ‘share a room with Rory.’

They could have two twin beds, like 1950s sitcom marrieds.

It wouldn’t be so weird. Yale dorm roomies. Been there, done that.

She doesn’t know why Rory’s still there years from now in her imagination. It’s just easy to get used to Rory being an essential ingredient of home. Like the years they didn’t live together were a blip, and now things are how they’re supposed to be again.

In a former academic rivals/current best friends way.

Rory stops in front of the door to the office and drops Paris’s hand. They’ve spent a lot of time bickering over who’ll wind up with this space. Mostly, they hang out on the sofa with their laptops to work while the kids play with Legos on the floor. Or, okay, watch cartoons on Netflix. Sorry Paris isn’t parental Superwoman.

Paris has always figured she’ll give Rory the office in the end. Rory is the one who’s writing a book, after all. She deserves it.

 

(Paris wants her to feel like a real writer--which she always has been, damn it, ever since that depressingly good article for The Franklin about pavement. Before she started working at the bookshop and got too busy to mope, Rory was feeling like she wasn’t much of a real anything. One night they drank a little too much wine trying to make it through a Marvel movie on Netflix -- sometimes understanding the cultural zeitgeist just isn’t worth it -- and Rory confessed that she felt bad even being around Paris these days, let alone living with her.

‘You’ve got two kids and a dozen advanced degrees and like three flourishing careers. I’ve got a house plant that’s losing all its leaves no matter how much I research proper plant care online, an old story in the New Yorker about a woman who has since defriended me on Facebook, and an unfinished shitty first draft of a book that might not even be anything. Anne Lamott might be proud of me, but nobody else would. Remember when you thought I was actual competition? Competition worth hiding in the bushes and stealing my school records for?’ Paris so shouldn't have ever told her about that.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Paris said, the only words that her mouth would let out. ‘You’ll always be my number one nemesis.’

‘Pfft.’

She wanted to sort out the tangle of feelings and turn them into something comforting and true. That Rory might veer toward suckiness sometimes, but it was literally impossible for her to be worthless. That she glowed with some constant, inexplicable magic, like Claire Danes in the movie about the star. When her husband decided he was going to be a creative writer, Paris’s heart had no trouble switching right off, but when Rory decided to do it, Paris’s heart was nothing but all in, ready to fight the world to help Rory make that dream come true. Probably best not to examine that.

‘I know a guy in publishing,’ Paris finally said. ‘He’s good. Once you finish the manuscript, I’ll put you guys in touch. You’re going to make Cheryl Strayed look like … like that dumb one with the bow and arrow.' She gestured vaguely at the TV.

‘Oh yeah, him,’ Rory said, and the new lightness in her tone told Paris the comforting attempt had worked at least a little. ‘Who is that?’

‘I don’t know, but he’s got to be the weak link. Katniss wannabe much?’

Rory laughed, a sound that was a little drunk and infinitely sweet, and rested her head on Paris’s shoulder. She fell asleep there while the movie droned on in a festival of never-ending smashing, and it was easy for once for Paris to be careful and still.)

 

“I know it’s been stressing you out that you haven’t got a craft corner in the new place,” Rory says, flinging the office door open and Paris’s generous plans to hell, “so – ta da!”

Paris stares dumbly in front of her.

It’s arts ‘n crafts wonderland: rainbows of colors and cubbies and craft supplies. Rory isn’t into organization like Paris is into organization, but it isn’t because she doesn’t have the knack for it; she just doesn’t see the point. (Paris blames Lorelai there.) This, this proves that Rory’s got what it takes on a fundamental level.

This is pretty much the most beautiful place she’s ever seen. Her soul feels more zen just looking at it.

“Do you not like it?” Rory asks, surveying Paris’s face. “You don’t like it. Okay. That’s all right. I was prepared for this. I know you like to do things your way, and it was a gamble to try it without you. I promise I’ll help you reorganize however you want. I just watched too much Netflix this week and I was hopped up on Marie Kondo and hacking your Pinterest account, and you've been so great about everything lately that I just wanted to do something for you, but I totally understand. One time Luke replaced my mom’s bedroom furniture without asking her, and I don’t want to say it was the thing that started the great temporary breakup of 2006, but from what I hear, it didn’t help.

"Oh, and!" She scurries over to the desk. “I didn’t get a chance to put the banner up yet; you’re home earlier than I thought you’d be. So, yay.”

She wiggles said banner in celebration. It’s aggressively sparkly and says PARIS GETS CRAFTY in green paint, the big letters a sloppier version of Rory’s handwriting (which Paris memorized every curve and dip of in high school, for nemesis reasons). Glitter falls to the carpet, dancing like snow.

Paris loses all control and sense, the way it must feel to transform into a werewolf or do drugs or something, and does what she vowed she’d never do again after spring break 2004. She takes Rory’s face in her hands and she kisses her.

“Oh!” Rory says. Paris feels the word on her mouth.

“I know, I know!” Paris exclaims, breaking away. “Believe me, Gilmore, I remember, okay? No kissing, not even for the purely pragmatic purposes of giving each other feedback.” She’s alliterating a lot. That’s not good. “I wasn’t planning on this. Don’t flatter yourself. But--but if you don’t want me to kiss you, then don’t surprise me with the perfect craft room!”

“Paris.”

“You think Doyle ever pulled off anything this considerate? Guess again! He used to use my piper cleaners _to clean pipes_.”

“Doyle smokes a pipe?” Rory’s face scrunches up in confusion.

“He tried for awhile when he thought he might make it into the writers’ room for Amazon’s new Tolkien series. Something about channeling the master himself. Let us never speak of it again.”

“Never spoken of,” Rory vows.

“In fact, let’s never speak of what just happened again either. No John Ronald Reuel, and no misguided smoochies. Have I mentioned that I’m running on four hours of sleep, a gluten free bagel, and total hatred for humanity? I feel like I should have led with that.”

“Paris,” Rory says.

“ _What?_ ”

Rory takes her hand again. This time, it’s slow and certain. Something chosen instead of impulsive. “I said ‘oh!’. You know, conventional exclamation of the surprised. Not the same thing as ‘no!’.”

“What’s your point?” Paris asks warily, trying not to trust Rory’s hand around hers.

Rory moves in. “I just … think that maybe we shouldn’t give smoochies the Doyle’s pipe treatment just yet.”

“Do we talk too niche?” Paris wonders. “Because I’m pretty sure none of that meant anything.”

“Fair enough.” Then, simple and sweet: “Try again. If you want to. I’m ready now.”

She has glitter in her hair, Paris notices up close, and that works, that makes sense, because Rory Gilmore has always sparkled beyond all logic. She’s smiling at Paris like she’s never been so sure.

Paris tries again.


End file.
